


Early Years

by elahrairah



Category: Royaltyverse
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Sad Ending, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 19:25:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10905870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elahrairah/pseuds/elahrairah
Summary: Your relationship with your mother can hardly be called that at all.





	Early Years

Your earliest memory of your mother is from your fourth year of life. You are already plagued by sleeplessness. In the middle of the night you explore aimlessly in the halls of the palace you don’t yet know how to navigate. Also wandering the dimly lit labyrinth, your mother finds you.

 “There are monsters in my room,” you tell them.

 Your mother replies in a hushed tone, “they are in mine as well.” The hall is too dark for you to see their expression.

 

 You see the throne room for the first time in your fifth year. This is where your mother spends so many of their days. When you see them there they look miserable. When they see you their demeanor brightens. You are allowed to sit on your mother’s lap as they spend the day seeing visitors, and they let you run your fingers along the bands of ceremonial scars on their lower arms. This action is so imbued with love and tenderness, you can not begin to fathom it until many years into your adulthood.

 

 Your mother almost exclusively speaks a different dialect than you. ‘At one time they spoke the modern tongue, but forgot how to long ago.’ Your communication is limited until your sixth year of life. You learn the ancient dialect. Your language teacher informs you that your name means “flower of God.” How fond, they say. Your mother has always spoken that affectionately of you, they say. 

 

 Your mother is away for much of your seventh year. You cry when you realise you no longer remember their face. When you begin to wonder if they will ever return, your mother appears again in throne room, as if not ever having been gone. You never want to be away from them again.

 “Learn to be alone,” they say with harsh finality. You leave so as not to bother them.

 The next day in the yard, your mother brings you two wolf pups to keep as pets. “They will always be here to protect you, even when I am not.”

 

 You stand with your mother in the small dark room of the innermost temple of the palace; only now, in your eighth year of life, have you seen it for the first time. No one other than they and you are allowed entry to this sanctum. You stand before a bowl of glowing embers, crackling and alight, creating smoke when your mother throws green leaves onto it. Your mother sways with the smoke; their eyes roll and they double over; their breathing is erratic. You are immediately afraid. You call to your mother but they cannot hear you. They're so far away.

 

 Torrential rain falls in the courtyard of your palace home on the anniversary of your ninth year of life. You gaze out your window at the large drops creating concentric circular ripples on the flooded brick pavement. The movement of a figure in the distance shakes you from your meditation. Your mother. They stand out in the rain, head tilted and facing the sky, sobbing.

 

 You begin to learn politics by the end of your tenth year. You learn about the world in a room thick with heat and amber fragrance, and brass censers dispensing smoke so smoothly your attention is occupied entirely by its motion. The air is so heavy you feel you cannot breathe. When your teacher lets you out for a break in the courtyard, you find your mother musing, alone.

"This country is sick,” they say. You are outside, but you still feel as though you cannot breathe.

 

 Your last memory of your mother is in your eleventh year of life. You enter the throne room your mother is oft-confined to, to find a crowd of adults buzzing with concern. Your mother is on the stone floor, convulsing and gasping for air. Saliva unceremoniously bubbles from their mouth. At first, nobody notices you standing there; they are preoccupied with helping your mother. When the advisor sees you, you are promptly told to Get Out of Here. You are ushered out of the room. Your last memory of your mother is of the whites of their eyes and their breathing slowing to a stop.


End file.
